Descriptive words: adjectives

Adjectives are the words that usually help to describe nouns. Adjectives do not have many grammatical forms, and we will not discuss them in this lesson. There are two types of adjectives: short one-syllable long adjectives and more longer words made from nouns or verbs.

Short adjectives

Most of the adjectives you will find in Nûrlâm dictionary are short one-syllable long words:

  • bhog (good, fine)
  • bolg (strong, mighty)
  • bûrd (heavy)
  • bûrz (dark)
  • dau (big, large)
  • dug (filthy, dirty)
  • fik (bad)
  • graz (cold)
  • gûrz (dead)
  • hûr (fierce)
  • karn (red)
  • kû (old)
  • mik (small, little)
  • mor (black)
  • nîr (pretty, beautiful, nice)
  • rodh (long)
  • sta (short)
  • tûrz (fat, thick)
  • uf (scary)

Long adjectives

Most of the long adjectives are formed from other words (usually nouns and rarely verbs) by adding suffix “-ûrz”:

  • gashûrz (hot) from spelling variant “gash” (fire)
  • golugûrz (elvish, elven, elfin) from “golug” (elf)
  • mauhûrz (military) from “mauh” (warrior)
  • urukûrz (orcish) from “uruk” (orc)

“Ûzûl” (green) is probably the only two-syllable long adjective in the dictionary that is not formed with suffix “-ûrz”.

As you can see in previous section, in words like “bûrz”, “gûrz”, “tûrz” and some more not listed there but present in the dictionary, “ûrz” is part of the adjective's stem, not a suffix.

There aren't many long adjectives in the dictionary, but it doesn't mean they are rare. If you can't find some adjective, you can make it by adding suffix “-ûrz” to the existing noun or verb with similar meaning, like with two of the examples above.

Word order

You may place any type of adjectives before or after the noun they describe, but other Neo-Black Speech dialects tend to place them after the word they modify, so most of examples in Nûrlâm's wiki do the same, especially with long adjectives. We'll continue to discuss word order and the ways of adding adjectives to nouns in the next two lessons. But in the following exercises the word order doesn't matter. For example, “red blood” may be translated as “ghor karn” or “karn ghor”, both variants are correct.


Exercise 1

Translate into Nûrlâm:

  1. big bad dragon
  2. bite the old humans
  3. bring the pretty ring
  4. find a fat troll
  5. fierce warrior
  6. long sword
  7. mighty orc
  8. red blood
  9. scary sorcery
  10. six dead elves

show answers

show answers

  1. dau fik lûg / lûg dau fik
  2. nakh za kû tark / nakh za tark kû
  3. thrak nîr nazgum / thrak nazgum nîr
  4. gimb ash tûrz olog / gimb ash olog tûrz
  5. hûr mauh / mauh hûr
  6. rodh lag / lag rodh
  7. bolg uruk / uruk bolg
  8. karn ghor / ghor karn
  9. uf dush / dush uf
  10. ink gûrz golug / ink golug gûrz

Exercise 2

Translate into English:

  1. bûrd lag
  2. dog dogum dug
  3. dog nuk mor tark
  4. graz nîn
  5. ash hont bhog
  6. kin bûrz lugum
  7. lag golugûrz
  8. mauk urukum sta
  9. mauk za lûg gashûrz
  10. mik push

show answers

show answers

  1. heavy sword
  2. kill the filthy slayer / slay the filthy slayer / kill the dirty slayer / slay the dirty slayer
  3. kill ten black humans / kill ten black men / slay ten black humans / slay ten black men
  4. cold water
  5. a good eye / one good eye / a fine eye / one fine eye
  6. see the dark tower / behold the dark tower
  7. elvish sword / elven sword / elfin sword
  8. fight the short goblin / fight the short orc
  9. fight the hot dragon / fight the hot dragons / fight this hot dragon / fight these hot dragons
  10. little shit / small shit

Exercise 3

Harder exercise requiring some creativity

Translate these adjectives formed from nouns into English:

  1. ghorûrz
  2. nînûrz
  3. pushûrz
  4. rodûrz
  5. tarkûrz

show answers

show answers

  1. bloody
  2. aquatic / waterish / aquatical / aqueous
  3. shitty
  4. mountainous / mountainy / montane / montanic
  5. mannish / humane

See also

lessons/adjectives.txt · Last modified: 2023/10/01 22:26 by morgoth